DISPLAY SCREEN USER IDENTIFICATION CARD FOR ACCESS TO SECURED DATABASES
An identification card with a planar member having a plurality of apertures formed therein and a plurality of prisms, each respectively mounted in one of the apertures so as to produce a refraction of a selected color of light transmitted through the aperture different from the refraction of a color of light transmitted through the other prisms in the plurality of other apertures.
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The present invention relates to permitting properly identified user access to secured databases and particularly to such user identification through a computer controlled interactive display interface. Over the past generation, the amount of commerce conducted through user interactive computer controlled display interfaces has been rapidly increasing. From commercial and personal on-line orders of products and services to monetary banking transactions, user interactive terminal transactions have been increasing at high acceleration. Since such commercial transactions involve communications between a user at a display terminal remotely connected to a source via a network, particularly the Internet or World Wide Web (Web)(these terms are used interchangeably herein), it is necessary to verify or confirm user identity. The user identification implementation should be: hard to counterfeit; user intuitive; and relatively easy to implement.
BRIEF SUMMARYAccording to one aspect of the present invention, interactive user identification is implemented by the use of an identification card comprising a planar member having a plurality of apertures formed therein and a plurality of prisms, each respectively mounted in one of the apertures so as to produce a refraction of a selected color of light transmitted through the aperture different from the refraction of a color of light transmitted through the other prisms in the plurality of other apertures. The plurality of prisms provides a pattern of the selected refracted colors representing a unique identification for said card.
According to another aspect of the invention, a computer controlled display system with display screen user identification is provided and comprises a displayed area providing a plurality of identifying colors respectively at positions within the area, and a displayed alignment marker for aligning an identification card placed against the display screen with the area providing identifying colors.
The aligned identification card includes a planar member having a plurality of apertures formed therein and a plurality of prisms, each respectively mounted in one of said apertures so as to produce a refraction of a color of light different from the refraction of a color of light transmitted through the other plurality of prisms, wherein the plurality of prisms respectively refract each of the identifying colors to provide a pattern of the refracted identifying colors representing a unique identification for the user.
Another aspect of the invention involves displaying a table enabling a viewer to convert the pattern of refracted identifying colors into an identifying numerical sequence. Said data entry apparatus enables the viewer to enter the numerical sequence to obtain access to the computer controlled display system.
The present invention will be better understood and its numerous objects and advantages will become more apparent to those skilled in the art by reference to the following drawings, in conjunction with the accompanying specification, in which:
Referring to
With reference to
As an alternative embodiment to the color chart 45, the viewer my use a color hexagon that may be available from graphical user interfaces (GUIs) provided by conventional operating systems and applications for such operating systems that enable a user to color or paint objects being created on the GUI. Such a color hexagon, as shown in
The operation of the identification card 42 may be better understood with reference to
Accordingly, with these variations in refraction, the refractive indices of the materials of the prism will vary with the color, i.e. wavelength of the color of the light being transmitted. This causes dispersion of the transmitted light. However, the resulting color of light that the viewer sees or perceives will be the color at the standard viewing angle of the screen. If the desire is to limit the effect of adjacent colors in any dispersed effect, a filter 50 made of any composition conventionally used in computer display privacy screens may be superimposed on the prisms.
The displayed Web page 40,
As mentioned hereinabove, display 33 provides a GIF interface, e.g. provides a color depth of 16 bpp (bits per pixel). The images and text of the display interface, e.g. the Web page 40 (
The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. As used herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises” and/or “comprising”, when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements and/or components, but do not preclude the presence of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements and/or components and/or groups thereof.
The corresponding structures, materials, acts and equivalents of all means or step plus function elements in the claims below are intended to include any structure, material or act for performing the function in combination with other claimed elements as specifically claimed. The description of the present invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the invention in the form disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. The embodiment was chosen and described in order to explain the principles of the invention and the practical application and to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the invention for various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated.
Claims
1. An identification card comprising:
- a planar member having a plurality of apertures formed therein; and
- a plurality of prisms, each respectively mounted in one said aperture so as to produce a refraction of a selected color of light transmitted through the aperture different from the refraction of a color of light transmitted through the other prisms in said plurality of other apertures; and
- wherein said plurality of prisms provides a pattern of said selected refracted colors representing a unique identification for said card.
2. The identification card of claim 1, wherein the refraction of a color of light produced by one of said prisms results from the composition of the prism.
3. The identification card of claim 1, wherein the refraction of a color of light produced by one of said prisms results from the geometric structure of the prism.
4. The identification card of claim 1, wherein the refraction of a color of light produced by one of said prisms results from the disposition of the prism within its respective aperture.
5. The identification card of claim 1 further including a plurality of privacy filters, each respectively superimposed on one of said plurality of prisms, wherein a user's view is limited to said selected refracted colors.
6. A computer controlled display system with display screen user identification comprising:
- a displayed area providing a plurality of identifying colors, respectively, at positions within said area
- a displayed alignment marker for aligning an identification card placed against said display screen with said area providing identifying colors; said identification card including: a planar member having a plurality of apertures formed therein; and a plurality of prisms, each respectively mounted in one of said apertures so as to produce a refraction of a color of light different from the refraction of a color of light transmitted through the other plurality of prisms;
- wherein said plurality of prisms respectively refract each of said identifying colors to provide a pattern of said refracted identifying colors representing a unique identification for said user.
7. The identification system of claim 6 wherein the refraction of a color of light produced by one of said prisms results from the composition of the prism.
8. The identification system of claim 6 wherein the refraction of a color of light produced by one of said prisms results from the geometric structure of the prism.
9. The identification system of claim 6 wherein the refraction of a color of light produced by one of said prisms results from the disposition of the prism within its respective aperture.
10. The identification system of claim 6 further including a plurality of privacy filters, each respectively superimposed on one of said plurality of prisms, wherein a user's view is limited to said selected refracted colors.
11. The identification system of claim 6 further including:
- a displayed table enabling a viewer to convert said pattern of refracted identifying colors into an identifying numerical sequence; and
- data entry apparatus enabling said viewer to enter said numerical sequence to obtain access to said computer controlled display system.
12. The identification system of claim 11 wherein:
- said display screen is displaying a Web page received from a secured site on the Web; and
- said user identification is for a user requesting access to said secured site.
13. The identification system of claim 12 wherein said area providing said identifying color is integrated into the content of the Web page image.
14. A method for user identification in a computer controlled display system comprising:
- displaying an area providing a plurality of identifying colors respectively at positions within said area;
- displaying an alignment marker for aligning an identification card placed against said display screen with said area providing identifying colors;
- transmitting each of said plurality of identifying colors through a respective one of a plurality of prisms, positioned coincident with said color to produce a refraction of a selected color of light different from the refraction of a color of light transmitted through the other prisms in said plurality of other apertures;
- wherein each of said plurality prisms is respectively aligned with one of said identifying colors; and
- said plurality of prisms respectively refract each of said identifying colors to provide a pattern of said refracted identifying colors representing a unique identification for said user.
15. The method of claim 14 further including transmitting each of said refractions of a color of light through a privacy filter.
16. The method of claim 14 further including:
- displaying a table enabling a user to convert said pattern of refracted identifying colors into an identifying numerical sequence; and
- enabling said user to enter said identifying numerical sequence to obtain access to said computer controlled display system.
17. The method of claim 14 further including:
- displaying a color hexagon including a spectrum of cells of differing colors; and
- enabling said user to sequentially select cells of the colors corresponding to the pattern of said refracted identifying colors representing a unique identification for said user.
18. The method of claim 14 wherein:
- said display screen is displaying a Web page received from a secured site on the Web; and
- said user identification is for a user requesting access to said secured site.
19. The method of claim 18 wherein said area providing said identifying colors is integrated into the content of the Web page image.
Type: Application
Filed: Nov 29, 2010
Publication Date: May 31, 2012
Patent Grant number: 8589801
Applicant: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION (NEW YORK, NY)
Inventors: Hoon Weng Soon (Austin), Jessica Mong Joo Tan , Liang Zee Wee
Application Number: 12/955,446
International Classification: G06K 19/06 (20060101); G06F 3/01 (20060101);